


Emotions

by MorganaNK



Category: Inspector Lynley - All Media Types, Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganaNK/pseuds/MorganaNK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara tries to reach out to Tommy after Helen's death</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Conflicting Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC... no copyright infringement intended... I'm just having a little fun with them and will put them back when I'm done.

I stand outside his house and I know that he's in there, he's just ignoring me, or perhaps he's finally drunk himself to death. As I turn and walk away from his front door it is all I can do not to cry.

I am so damn angry with him. It feels as if he blames me, but I did everything that I could to try and save Helen. I think he wishes that it had been me that had been shot, that it was me who had died instead of his wife. 

I wish he would speak to me; I wish that he would reach out. Hell, I’d even take him shouting at me and berating me. Anything would be better than this silence.

I hate him; hate that he can do this to me, hate that he is the only one in my world who can make me feel like this. I hate that I’ve given him that power over me.

I feel helpless, and it’s not a feeling that sits comfortably with me. I am used to doing, of seeing a problem and finding the solution. I can’t see one now.

If I could go back in time I would have never let him into my life. If I could go back to that first case in Yorkshire I would have helped him solve the case and then we would have gone our separate ways, just like he wanted us to do. I should never have begged him. I should have walked away, even if it had cost me my career.

My face feels damp and I realise that I am crying. I lean against a convenient wall, wiping my eyes savagely with the back of my hand. Tears that were silent become choking sobs, and I don’t care if I am drawing attention to myself. I may hate him but there is also a stronger emotion, one that I am careful to never let him see that I feel.  


Not seeing him, talking to him, being touched by him, it’s killing me. He’s my closest friend, he’s the reason that I can get up in the morning, the reason I can breathe. 

I love him.


	2. Emotions Conflicted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy's reaction to Barbara trying to reach him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC... no copyright infringement intended... I'm just having a little fun with them and will put them back when I'm done.

I can hear Barbara outside. She is alternating between hammering on my door, leaning on the doorbell, and calling for me through the letterbox but still I don’t move for my position, slumped on the couch in my darkened lounge. The noise is reverberating around my head, my hangover amplifying it, and I am desperate for another drink.

She sounds angry, and I cannot blame her. Since Helen died I have shut her out and pushed her away. I cannot bear to see her, I cannot look at her and see the pity and disappointment in her expressive green eyes. And there would be disappointment when she sees just how far I have fallen.

The cacophony at my front door has ceased, and I offer up a silent prayer of thanks, only to reprimand myself a second later for being stupid. There is no higher power; no mighty god or all powerful deity, because if there were then none of this would ever have happened.

Everyone assumes that I am grieving, and perhaps I am, but not how people might think. I am grieving because of my stupidity, because of my neediness and my selfishness. I should never have married Helen, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I believed that I needed a proper wife; someone respectable who looked the part, knew how to behave, how to say all the right things and project the right image, but I was fooling myself. I was compromising when I really should have listened to my doubts.

I am also grieving for Barbara, but I cannot allow my mind to go there so I slam the door on that thought. If I allow my mind to linger on Barbara…

I shudder and unsteadily reach for the bottle of whisky on my coffee table and pour some into a glass, cursing as my shaking hand causes me to spill some. I drink it down in one go, grimacing as the fiery liquid burns against my throat but welcoming the pain anyway.

Days and nights run have run into each other, and I cannot recall the last time I was sober. I am probably killing myself and yet I cannot bring myself to care. Maybe death would be the answer, because what I am doing now is not living.


End file.
